Global Water resources

Water resources are sources of water that are useful or potentially useful to humans. Uses of water
include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities. Virtually all of these
human uses require fresh water.

97% of water on the Earth is salt water, leaving only 3% as fresh water of which slightly over two thirds
is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The remaining unfrozen fresh water is mainly found as
groundwater, with only a small fraction present above ground or in the air.

Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing.
Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world and as the world population continues
to rise, so too does the water demand. Awareness of the global importance of preserving water for
ecosystem services has only recently emerged as, during the 21st century, more than half the world’s
wetlands have been lost along with their valuable environmental services. Biodiversity-rich freshwater
ecosystems are currently declining faster than marine or land ecosystems. The framework for allocating
water resources to water users (where such a framework exists) is known as water rights.

1. Sources of fresh water

1.1Surface water
Surface water is water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland. Surface water is naturally replenished by
precipitation and naturally lost through discharge to the oceans, evaporation, and sub-surface seepage.

Although the only natural input to any surface water system is precipitation within its watershed, the total
quantity of water in that system at any given time is also dependent on many other factors. These factors
include storage capacity in lakes, wetlands and artificial reservoirs, the permeability of the soil beneath
these storage bodies, the runoff characteristics of the land in the watershed, the timing of the precipitation
and local evaporation rates. All of these factors also affect the proportions of water lost.

Human activities can have a large and sometimes devastating impact on these factors. Humans often
increase storage capacity by constructing reservoirs and decrease it by draining wetlands. Humans often
increase runoff quantities and velocities by paving areas and channelizing stream flow.

The total quantity of water available at any given time is an important consideration. Some human water
users have an intermittent need for water.

1.1.1Distribution of river water

The distribution of renewable river water across the Earth's surface is very uneven,
Continent or region Renewable river water (km³) Percent of world total
Sub-Saharan Africa 4,000 9.20
Middle East and North Africa 140 0.32
Europe 2,900 6.70
Asia (excluding Middle East) 13,300 30.6
Australia 440 1.01
Oceania 6,500 14.9
North America 7,800 17.9
South America 12,000 27.6

there can be huge variations. For example, as much as a quarter of Australia's limited renewable fresh
water supply is found in almost uninhabited Cape York Peninsula. Also, even in well-watered continents,
there are areas that are extremely short of water, such as Texas in North America, whose renewable water
supply totals only 26 km³ in an area of 695,622 km², or South Africa, with only 44 km³ in 1,221,037 km².
The areas of greatest concentration of renewable water are:
The Amazon and Orinoco Basins (a total of 6,500 km³ or 15 percent of global runoff)
East Asia
Yangtze Basin - 1,000 km³
South and Southeast Asia, with a total of 8,000 km³ or 18 percent of global runoff
Brahmaputra Basin - 900 km³
Irrawaddy Basin - 500 km³
Mekong Basin - 450 km³
Canada, with over 10 percent of world's river water and large numbers in lakes
Mackenzie River - over 250 km³
Yukon River - over 150 km³
Siberia
Yenisey - over 5% of world's fresh water in basin - second largest after the Amazon
Ob River - over 500 km²
Lena River - over 450 km²
New Guinea
Fly and Sepik Rivers - total over 300 km³ in only about 150,000 km² of basin area.

1.2 Under river flow

Throughout the course of the river, the total volume of water transported downstream will often be a
combination of the visible free water flow together with a substantial contribution flowing through sub-
surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain called the hyporheic zone. For many
rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may greatly exceed the visible flow. The hyporheic
zone often forms a dynamic interface between surface water and true ground-water receiving water from
the ground water when aquifers are fully charged and contributing water to ground-water when ground
waters are depleted. This is especially significant in karst areas where pot-holes and underground rivers
are common.

1.3 Ground water

Sub-surface water, or groundwater, is fresh water located in the pore space of soil and rocks. It is also
water that is flowing within aquifers below the water table. Sometimes it is useful to make a distinction
between sub-surface water that is closely associated with surface water and deep sub-surface water in an
aquifer (sometimes called "fossil water.

Sub-surface water can be thought of in the same terms as surface water: inputs, outputs and storage. The
critical difference is that due to its slow rate of turnover, sub-surface water storage is generally much
larger compared to inputs than it is for surface water. This difference makes it easy for humans to use
sub-surface water unsustainably for a long time without severe consequences. Nevertheless, over the long
term the average rate of seepage above a sub-surface water source is the upper bound for average
consumption of water from that source.
1.4 Desalination

Desalination is an artificial process by which saline water (generally sea water) is converted to fresh
water. The most common desalination processes are distillation and reverse osmosis. Desalination is
currently expensive compared to most alternative sources of water, and only a very small fraction of total
human use is satisfied by desalination. It is only economically practical for high-valued uses (such as
household and industrial uses) in arid areas. The most extensive use is in the Persian Gulf.

1.5 Frozen water

An iceberg as seen from Newfoundland Several schemes have been proposed to make use of icebergs as a
water source, however to date this has only been done for novelty purposes. Glacier runoff is considered
to be surface water.The Himalayas, which are often called "The Roof of the World", contain some of the
most extensive and rough high altitude areas on Earth as well as the greatest area of glaciers and
permafrost outside of the poles. Ten of Asia’s largest rivers flow from there, and more than a billion
people’s livelihoods depend on them. To complicate matters, temperatures are rising more rapidly here
than the global average. In Nepal the temperature has risen with 0.6 degree over the last decade, whereas
the global warming has been around 0.7 over the last hundred years

Estimate of global water distribution

Water source Water volume, in Water volume, in Percent of Percent

cubic miles cubic kilometers freshwater of
total
water
Oceans, Seas, & Bays 321,000,000 1,338,000,000 -- 96.54
Ice caps, Glaciers, & 5,773,000 24,064,000 68.7 1.74
Permanent Snow
Ground water 5,614,000 23,400,000 -- 1.69
    Fresh 2,526,000 10,530,000 30.1 0.76
    Saline 3,088,000 12,870,000 -- 0.94
Soil Moisture 3,959 16,500 0.05 0.001
Ground Ice & 71,970 300,000 0.86 0.022
Permafrost
Lakes 42,320 176,400 -- 0.013
    Fresh 21,830 91,000 0.26 0.007
    Saline 20,490 85,400 -- 0.006
Atmosphere 3,095 12,900 0.04 0.001
Swamp Water 2,752 11,470 0.03 0.0008
Rivers 509 2,120 0.006 0.0002
Biological Water 269 1,120 0.003 0.0001
Source: Igor Shiklomanov's chapter "World fresh water resources" in Peter H. Gleick
(editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources (Oxford
University Press, New York).

2. Uses of fresh water

Uses of fresh water can be categorized as consumptive and non-consumptive (sometimes called
"renewable"). A use of water is consumptive if that water is not immediately available for another use.
Losses to sub-surface seepage and evaporation are considered consumptive, as is water incorporated into
a product (such as farm produce). Water that can be treated and returned as surface water, such as sewage,
is generally considered non-consumptive if that water can be put to additional use.

2.1 Agricultural
A farm in Ontario It is estimated that 69% of worldwide water use is for irrigation, with 15-35% of
irrigation withdrawals being unsustainable. In some areas of the world irrigation is necessary to grow any
crop at all, in other areas it permits more profitable crops to be grown or enhances crop yield. Various
irrigation methods involve different trade-offs between crop yield, water consumption and capital cost of
equipment and structures. Irrigation methods such as furrow and overhead sprinkler irrigation are usually
less expensive but are also typically less efficient, because much of the water evaporates, runs off or
drains below the root zone. Other irrigation methods considered to be more efficient include drip or
trickle irrigation, surge irrigation, and some types of sprinkler systems where the sprinklers are operated
near ground level. These types of systems, while more expensive, usually offer greater potential to
minimize runoff, drainage and evaporation. Any system that is improperly managed can be wasteful, all
methods have the potential for high efficiencies under suitable conditions, appropriate irrigation timing
and management. One issue that is often insufficiently considered is salinization of sub-surface
water.Aquaculture is a small but growing agricultural use of water. Freshwater commercial fisheries may
also be considered as agricultural uses of water, but have generally been assigned a lower priority than
irrigation (see Aral Sea and Pyramid Lake.As global populations grow, and as demand for food increases
in a world with a fixed water supply, there are efforts underway to learn how to produce more food with
less water, through improvements in irrigation, methods, and technologies, agricultural water
management, crop types, and water monitoring.

2.2 Industrial
It is estimated that 22% of worldwide water use is industrial Major industrial users include power plants,
which use water for cooling or as a power source (i.e. hydroelectric plants), ore and oil refineries, which
use water in chemical processes, and manufacturing plants, which use water as a solvent.The portion of
industrial water usage that is consumptive varies widely, but as a whole is lower than agricultural
use.Water is used in power generation. Hydroelectricity is electricity obtained from hydropower.
Hydroelectric power comes from water driving a water turbine connected to a generator. Hydroelectricity
is a low-cost, non-polluting, renewable energy source. The energy is supplied by the sun. Heat from the
sun evaporates water, which condenses as rain in higher altitudes, from where it flows down.Pressurized
water is used in water blasting and water jet cutters. Also, very high pressure water guns are used for
precise cutting. It works very well, is relatively safe, and is not harmful to the environment. It is also used
in the cooling of machinery to prevent over-heating, or prevent saw blades from over-heating.Water is
also used in many industrial processes and machines, such as the steam turbine and heat exchanger, in
addition to its use as a chemical solvent. Discharge of untreated water from industrial uses is pollution.
Pollution includes discharged solutes (chemical pollution) and discharged coolant water (thermal
pollution). Industry requires pure water for many applications and utilizes a variety of purification
techniques both in water supply and discharge.

2.3 Household
Drinking water It is estimated that 8% of worldwide water use is for household purposes. These include
drinking water, bathing, cooking, sanitation, and gardening. Basic household water requirements have
been estimated by Peter Gleick at around 50 liters per person per day, excluding water for gardens.
Drinking water is water that is of sufficiently high quality so that it can be consumed or used without risk
of immediate or long term harm. Such water is commonly called potable water. In most developed
countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard even
though only a very small proportion is actually consumed or used in food preparation.